


How To While Away These Bleaker Wintery Evenings

by Iwantthatcoat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Jealousy trope, M/M, Rimming, Wrestling, nude wrestling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 04:19:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15878403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iwantthatcoat/pseuds/Iwantthatcoat
Summary: Sherlock is flirting with someone other than John and the doctor doesn't take too kindly to the slight. [A remix of Maribor_Petrichor's "How To While Away These Bleak Autumnal Evenings"]





	How To While Away These Bleaker Wintery Evenings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maribor_Petrichor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maribor_Petrichor/gifts).
  * Inspired by [How To While Away These Bleak Autumnal Evenings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10379688) by [Maribor_Petrichor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maribor_Petrichor/pseuds/Maribor_Petrichor). 



It was a simple, Scotland Yard-assigned text alert. Again. 

John ignored it and headed to the fridge to wrangle up something for breakfast. Maybe he'd make an omelette, or even a frittata. Along with some toast and marmalade. Maybe he'd even make some of his world-renowned French toast Sherlock especially enjoyed— which he would be eating by himself at this point, because Sherlock wouldn’t remove the blasted phone from his hand. 

It wasn't as if it were truly irking. Not like that... noise... that Sherlock kept on his phone long after Irene Adler was no longer a force to be reckoned with. Now, that wasn’t accurate. Irene Adler was always a force to be reckoned with. But she had dropped off their radar. Probably playing dead again.

"Can't Scotland Yard solve anything on their own, just for once?" snapped John. 

"Clearly not."

"If you continue to text them they'll never learn, you know." John forced a smile.

Sherlock returned it. "Though the potential is there, Hopkins is still fairly new, and far from confident. She needs a... sounding board for her ideas. Someone to provide her with the occasional spark of illumination."

John took a fork to the eggs and whipped them into a pale froth.

Hopkins was as bad as Molly used to be, ages ago. Well, he had no grounds for complaint, but...

"What?"

"Nothing."

"No. Something. Definitely something." Sherlock put the mobile down to scan the newspaper; then, a few minutes later, he collapsed the edge and peered over the top at John. "No need to be concerned. I'm well aware a relationship would prove detrimental to my work. Not something I would ever consider."

Oh. 

John decided he wasn’t that hungry after all. Maybe just the scrambled eggs. "So," he broached the subject carefully, "not something you ever would choose to pursue, then? A relationship? Even a short-term one?"

"I see no advantage in diluting my focus. I am, as I have previously stated, married to my work.”

Maybe not scrambled eggs either. John nodded once and headed upstairs. “I’ll be in my room. You might as well go down there and help her out. It’s all you'll be thinking about anyway.” John gave a shrug and tried to appear indifferent, but as he climbed the steps he wondered if his comment had sounded as much like a jealous spouse to Sherlock as it had to him.

He heard the front door slam. 

Probably did, then.

Well, John had a lot to think about before Sherlock came back. He returned to his chair. Never really wanted to go upstairs; that had been entirely for show. John grabbed the newspaper Sherlock had discarded, and waited.

**I don't see why you are in such a strop. Actually, you should be pleased.**

Ah, yes. A discussion via text. **Pleased? About what?**

**About my willingness to help Hopkins. To help people. To care about something besides running off on my own, solving cases, proving myself more clever than anyone else.**

**You don't need to prove that.**

**Oh, but I do. Or rather, I did.**

John didn’t respond. He simply waited to see where this conversation was headed.

**Before you, that is. You showed me the advantage of caring. Caring about others is… occasionally quite difficult, but you’ve made me see the positive aspects of seeking out more than just the most surface-level of relationships.**

**I showed you the advantage of becoming closer to Hopkins. Wonderful. Good samaritan medal for me, then.**

**Well, don’t get too excited, because it didn’t work.**

**Oh… because you aren't spending more time with her just to be helpful. You’re getting something out of it.**

**I want something from it, yes.**

**Good luck with that, mate. Not to say you’re not attractive enough to have a shot. I just mean that she might be a bit more concerned about working together violating policy. You might even find _she’s_ the one married to her work.**

**No, John, I don't want _that_. I am benefiting from being unselfish. I want you to see that I am… I want to prove to myself that I am capable. Of relationships. On a smaller scale at first, before I’d ever attempt to...well, baby steps, so they say**.

**You are going after a bigger fish? I wish you well.**

There was a longer pause before Sherlock responded.

**John?**

**Yeah?**

**This doesn't feel as inspiring as when we were roleplaying previously.**

John heard Sherlock’s tread on the stairs followed by the twist of the door handle. He appeared in the doorway, leaning somewhat awkwardly against the frame.

“Upon reexamining my unspoken thoughts from that point in time, the jealousy angle seems far less plausible. You know I have zero interest in anyone else, John.”

“No, it’s fine. I mean, I know Hopkins is more of a stretch compared to, say, Irene, but you’ve always had— well, _have,_ even— someone eyeing you. I was pretty convinced at least that one had been pretty mutual. Remember the baby names? Don’t tell me you didn’t intend to make me jealous when Miss Go-On-Impress-A-Girl was sitting there in your dressing gown and nothing else.”

“I scarcely noticed that aspect, I assure you. The puzzle was far more absorbing.” Sherlock crossed to his chair and sat. “I recall rather well trying to impress you, however.”

John stretched his stockinged feet out toward Sherlock’s. “I know she wasn’t me. Well. Now I know. Took a bit. I’m grateful that my having been such a colossal idiot didn’t make you lose interest entirely.”

“I was a bit smitten by then.” Sherlock stepped on his heels, pushed off his shoes, and leaned his feet and a good part of his torso forward till they made contact. “And that’s rather my point. My half of the story lacks sufficient drama. It consists of merely the gradual realisation that I was capable of want, once you made it past my defenses. Must have been that military talent for subterfuge.”

"Subterfuge, hah! More like a liability. I could scarcely walk, and even after that was addressed I was captured and thrown into a bonfire. If you were on your own—"

"Yes, if I were on my own Mary and I never would have had to rescue you from a bonfire. That is true. And if you were not my partner— in the narrower sense, at that time— you would have never been put into one. Am I your doom?"

"Of course not."

"Then it is equally implausible that you would be my liability. Why the sudden feelings of inadequacy, John? Don’t tell me this silly game has had some tangible effect?”

"Not really, no. But. It's just that when you said, again, that you were married to your work, I… sort of believed it."

"So it appears it is my turn to thank you for complimenting my acting skills."

"Oh. Well, when Lestrade said the stage had lost what NSY had gained—"

"But I wasn't acting. That is pure truth. I am married to my work. You are part of that work. Furthermore, you are part of me. There is no me without you. And when there was, briefly, it.... Well, I wouldn’t care to repeat the experience."

"Didn't go particularly well. Yeah. I'm sorry I—"

"We've already done that, John. Said our 'sorry's. And words can only convey so much, in any case. Time for action.” He glanced toward the bedroom. “Get on the bed,” and paused a moment before choosing to add, “Please.”

“This isn’t some sort of make up sex, is it?”

“Of course not. That would have required an argument.”

“Oh, we can have an argument all right. We can argue about where we left off last time we tried this conversation. Rimming. My turn.”

“And, as I have mentioned in the recent past, ‘only if I don’t leap to try it on you again’.”

“I dare you.”

“You... dare me?”

“To leap to try it again. Because when you do, you will find yourself in a very compromising position.”

“Perhaps, as you are stripping and situating yourself properly in our bed, you might take a moment to observe the framed judo certificate upon the wall?”

“My training never earned me a poncy little certificate, true.”

Sherlock cleared his throat loudly. “I suggest you head there now, Captain. And you might wish to ponder my superior reach before you start contemplating defiance.”

“I’m built like a fucking cannonball. Low center of gravity. Better balance. Far more effective in surprise maneuvers. Not this time, Sherlock. Not that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy myself before, but— not this time.” John extended his arm out in open invitation. “After you.”

Sherlock paused a moment, considering some unknown chain of events, before unbuttoning his shirt and walking into the bedroom. “John, the game, is most definitely on.”

John called out to the man in the next room, “You’ll be eating your words and I’ll be eating your arse, Sherlock Holmes.”

They both burst out laughing at how ridiculous their grandstanding was, but that didn’t stop either of them from ramping it up. John joined him and unbuttoned his shirt— tossing it behind him with a flourish— then made short work of the rest of his clothing. Sherlock hurriedly removed whatever remained clinging to his frame. Then each man stared at the other, frozen.

“Well,” said Sherlock, voice brimming with arrogance, “you just lost your one chance right then.” He strode to the bed and positioned himself, sitting up straight, balancing carefully on his knees.

John laughed and matched Sherlock’s stance. “I can’t imagine you having been much of a wrestler.”

As they both leaned forward, Sherlock grinned and made a grab for John’s ankle. 

“Figured as much,” said John, easily twisting his legs aside. John leaned his weight to one side and grasped Sherlock’s shoulder hard and fast, driving it toward his ear, but Sherlock simply wasn't flipping over from the pressure point as he should have done. “Go… down, would you, you… flexible bastard!” 

John released him and charged forward, wrapping an arm around Sherlock’s waist and the other on his thigh, only to find Sherlock shifting his hips backward, farther than John could stretch, sending him tumbling forward while Sherlock rebounded, pushing John’s head down and jutting his hips into the back of his neck. The heat radiating from them made John forget all about winning, as he contemplated turning his head and taking Sherlock’s cock into his mouth right then and there. Unsportsmanlike, sure, but definitely appealing. But before he could make a move, Sherlock blocked John’s arm at the shoulder and swung his body around the outside, until he was suddenly covering John’s entire body.

“I could have shot into a Fireman’s Carry, went down low,” John panted, “thrown you over my head and down onto the mat.”

Sherlock was nearly as breathless, rustling halting words into John’s ear. “Yes, but... as we are on a bed, not a mat… you’d likely have sent me flying over the edge and into the wall. I’ll admit, I was rather counting on your not doing that.” He slid down the back of John’s body and spread him apart. John groaned in a heady mix of defeat and pure pleasure.

“Knew if I tried a classic height move you’d charge me. As if you are truly capable of any surprise maneuvers against me.”

“Absconded with your heart through subterfuge. Gotta think that was at least a bit of a surprise.”

“Indeed you did. Sorry, no more talking from me for a bit.”

“Well, at least that’s some consola….oh God, yes! You do realise that I am going to research the best moves against tall, lanky...hhhah...judo-trained, double-jointed bastards and demand a rematch?”

John knew if his mouth hadn’t been otherwise occupied, Sherlock would say he was counting on it.

**Author's Note:**

> Much like the original author, I'm no M. Night Shymalan— but I'm also happy with my twisting. Apologies if the non-use of established relationship, role play or twist tag upset you, but I am assuming, like the original author (who you've likely even read as well) it is more or less ok and would ruin the fun.


End file.
